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Press, 16 February 1980, Page 22

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PRIORITIES

“Who is the world’s best lawyer? The American magazine ‘National Law Journal’ suggests that it may be a criminal advocate in Guyana, Sir Lionel Luckhoo, aged 65. His record shows that he has defended 229 clients accused of murder and has had every one of them acquitted” — “Reporter’s Diary,” 10/1/80. Controversy surrounds the app 1 i ctat ion by the leading Christchurch criminal lawyer, Mr I. B. Prolix, to admit the entire population of Guyana to New Zealand as refugees. “At a time when there is a great deal of hoo-ha about Vietnamese boat people, Kampucheans and the like,” Mr Prolix told “Pony” Biers of the NZPA, “it seems to me to be important that we should be getting our national priorities right. Quite plainly New Zealand, or at any rate the New Zealand Bar, which amounts to the same thing, needs these brilliant Guyanese to serve as jurors far more than it needs a bunch of CochinChinese who would probably convict everybody.” Mr Prolix pointed out that the remarkable record of Sir Lionel Luckhoo could only possibly have been achieved in a country where juries were not only disposed, but absolutely desperately keen, to let people off.

“That is the one thing wrong with , the jury system in New. Zealand,” he J said, sipping from a half-gallon jar ofi| warm beer as he spoke and charitably'ffl proffering Biers a swig from time to. a time. “The Crown starts off with ana unfair advantage under our system 4| because juries will insist on being® impressed by the evidence, and!.3 evidence is something which ouqS judges, constricted as they are by the 3 outdated habits of thought ofs centuries, are inclined to allow the "5 Crown to call, often with results J highly prejudicial to the accused. i “The only way to right the balance, ? preserve our constitutional fabric, and, S more importantly, ensure my clients?? some sort of chance of getting off, is | to seed juries with these superbly impartial Guyanese, and the only way's to ensure that is to get the whole lot v of them over here, lock, stock and ‘ barrel.” ' •> The official stance of the Ministry of Immigration is that Mr Prolix’s ? application is ill-conceived since the | Guyanese want to remain in Guyana, 1; and cannot therefore be dealt with as $ though they were refugees. But Mr ■>; Prolix is unimpressed by this « argument. “I am unimpressed by that .f argument,” he told Biers. “I haven’t got an answer to it, but I am unimpressed by it.”